sniffle

C2+ Topic:Health & Medicine

US /ˈsnɪfəl/ UK /ˈsnɪfəl/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

verb
to draw air audibly through the nose, as when crying or sick

She tried to sniffle quietly so no one would notice her tears.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 verb · to draw air audibly through... snuffle sniff snivel whimper

Word family

Derived forms snifflessnifflersniffly

Related forms sniff snuffle

Etymology

Frequentative of sniff (sniff + -le), of imitative origin, mimicking the sound of drawing air audibly through the nose.

sniff Middle English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

Health & Medicine

External links

# sniffle

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** verb
**IPA (US):** /ˈsnɪfəl/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈsnɪfəl/

## Meanings
1. to draw air audibly through the nose, as when crying or sick

## Examples
- She tried to sniffle quietly so no one would notice her tears.

## Synonyms
- snuffle
- sniff
- snivel
- whimper

## Derived Forms
- sniffles
- sniffler
- sniffly

## Related Forms
- sniff
- snuffle

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: sniff

## Etymology
Frequentative of sniff (sniff + -le), of imitative origin, mimicking the sound of drawing air audibly through the nose.

## AI Etymology
Sniffle is from frequentative of sniff (sniff + -le), of imitative origin, mimicking the sound of drawing air audibly through the nose. The historical chain includes Middle English sniff. Morphologically, sniffle is best read as compound, suffixal formation, and imitative formation, yielding an English verb and noun shaped by both form history and later usage. In current English it functions as a verb and noun, with the sense "to draw air audibly through the nose, as when crying or sick". English derivatives include sniffles, sniffler, and sniffly; related forms include sniff and snuffle. The result is an English verb and noun whose etymology preserves the older forms while supporting the word's specialized modern meaning.

## Topics
- Health & Medicine

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